


Before You Go

by staringatstars



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Formerly Dark!Jack, Isolation, Lonely!Sammy, M/M, Spoilers Post-75
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22750399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staringatstars/pseuds/staringatstars
Summary: When faced with an impossible choice, Sammy makes a deal with an enigmatic sea captain.
Relationships: Sammy Stevens/Jack Wright, implied Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 35
Kudos: 88





	1. Where's Sammy?

Mist rolls over the ocean, enveloping the algae-slick rocks that poke through the waves. Beneath the blanket of cool and cold, the sand stretches with no end, unbroken and undisturbed by none, with the exception of a single man. 

He stands where the sea meets the shores, the cuffs of his jeans soaked with spray and foam. The threadbare shirt he wears isn’t enough to keep the chill from sinking into his bones, he knows, yet the knowledge doesn’t faze him. With his eyes locked on a distant horizon, the needs of his body are inconsequential. A peace surrounds and embraces him, woven from solitude and quiet the likes of which he’d never known. 

This place feels familiar, like a skin he’s worn beneath the skin, always waiting for a tear in the outer layer large enough to set it free. Even though he’s never been here before, he remembers it from the first couple of days he’d tried to survive in the big city without Jack, from living alone in an empty apartment in a town where no one knew a damn thing about him, from listening to Debbie say Jack’s name on _Wright On_ , from hearing Lily give up, from withdrawing deeper and deeper into himself in the hopes that when he offered himself to the Void, no one would get hurt. 

Ben wouldn’t—

“What a lovely day,” the soft, melodious voice of a stranger comments. “Wouldn’t you agree, Sammy?” 

Dressed in a heavy coat and turtleneck, the older gentleman sported a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, as well as long silver hair tied in a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. There’s a ruddiness to his cheeks from the frequent touch of frigid winds that contrasts against the general grey of his pallor, an indistinctness to his edges that brings to mind vapor and mist and might dissipate just as easily. 

Even in the face of what could very well be an apparition, Sammy can’t find it in him to care. 

The best he can manage is the vaguest sense of irritation. The solitude of this barren, empty place, wherever or whatever it is, isn’t meant to be disturbed, and to do so now with sound or presence smarts like indiscretion. 

As the seconds tick by, however, Sammy can’t shake the inkling that the man isn’t disappointed at all by his lack of reaction. 

If anything, he’s pleased. 

It takes Sammy a moment to work up the energy to speak, and when he does, the words feel heavy and clumsy in his mouth, “How do you know my name?”

The man’s face breaks into a broad smile, as though he’d been waiting for Sammy to ask that exact question. “Oh, you’re something of a celebrity in my neck of the woods,” he starts with the verbal equivalent of slapping Sammy on the back. Barely a minute into their conversation and Sammy already finds his companionship grating. “The man who offered himself up freely to a Power and got knocked on his arse for his trouble.” Anger sparks to life within Sammy, jarring him from the numbness that had consumed him for so long, and he scowls, raising his head in stubborn defiance against the stranger’s paper-thin veneer of geniality. “Because, let’s face it, an open invitation like that? Dangerous stuff.” The sailor looks him over, a glint of something cruel in his flinty gaze.

“The Void rejected me,” Sammy muses distantly. “What else is there to worry about?” 

Hearing that, the not-quite friendly grin on the older man’s face gains a predatory edge. “I think you’ll find that the Lonely’s standards are a little less exacting.” The fog surrounding the sailor gathers close around him, condensing, then separates into threads of vapor that weave and curl around him. Some of them stretch into tendrils that bend like the spindly fingers of a beckoning hand.

 _The rainbow lights fill his windshield, threatening to take him, and then they’re flying away, and it’s like his entire future has been taken and returned to him twice in one afternoon, except a laser streaks from the ground and the rainbow lights are falling towards the radio station. They crash into the building with a pulse that knocks out the lights in town. Sammy loses control of the car._

_Walt’s truck veers off the road, crashing through the underbrush, clipping trees, and then something big and sturdy enough finally puts a stop to his endless descent. His head pitches forward, there’s an impact that whites out his vision, the shattering of glass and branches breaking, metal shrieking, until finally everything just…_

_... stops._

A shudder shakes Sammy’s frame, jarring him from the unnatural placidity that had seeped into his marrow, and while the sailor continues to speak, Sammy starts to blink the fog from his eyes. 

“How best to explain this?” He scratches his greying beard with a thoughtful hum. “So, the Dark, which you call the Void, is the primal fear that there is something hidden in the shadows, lurking just out of sight. It’s a vast universe where you are never alone and you never will be. Horrible thought, I know. On the other hand, the Lonely could reasonably be considered the primal fear that you are, in fact, utterly and completely alone.” He pauses to lean in close enough for Sammy to smell the tang of brine on his clothes. “I _know_ you know what I’m talking about.” Now that he’s awake, Sammy grits his teeth and sets his jaw as if bracing for a fight. “That relief that comes when all your bonds are withered and gone - I can feel it in you just as surely as I feel it in me.”

The problem is that Sammy does feel it - and has for a long time. Hearing it out loud makes him feel as though he’s being cut open, but it’s a cut that could just as easily be a balm if he gives in. 

He doesn’t. 

He lets it sting and burn, reminds himself that there are people worth hurting for. 

“Look,” Sammy interjects, putting his years of dealing with obnoxious callers on the Shotgun Sammy segment to good use, “I don’t know you. But I think I’d appreciate it if you didn’t compare yourself to me, Mr…?” 

“Lukas. Peter Lukas, captain of the _Tundra_. And you could stay here forever if you like. No one would blame you if you did,” no matter how much Sammy would like to think that he’s moving past the ‘secretive and withdrawn’ stage of his life that doesn’t change the fact that an eternity of solitude is a downright tempting offer, “but if there’s something you have to do, maybe someone you think you have to protect or save that would require a bit of traveling between worlds, so to speak,” this time, Peter Lukas actually does clap a heavy hand on his shoulder. Sammy feels numbness sink in through the contact, sapping his will to resist as the gentle swell of the waves drowns his thoughts, “then it’s lucky for you that I just so happen to be in the market for an avatar.”

* * *

When Jack is pulled out of the Void, it’s not by one voice calling him into the Light, but by many. An entire town of people who have come to claim him as one of their own, who love him and want nothing more than to meet him and know him and bring him home. 

Hundreds of people whose faces he’d never seen stood outside the Devil’s Doorstep, trembling with fear, shaking with rage and grief, still in resolution, and shone their flashlights into the darkness, driving the shadows back.

_feardoubthope_

As one, they called for him. 

And one voice rose above them all, cracking with the strain of every second they’d spent apart, “Jack!”

_hopefearlove_

_Sammy!_

Jack can’t manage more than a pitiful rasp, nothing more than a whimper, but he stumbles and lurches towards the lights flooding the cavern, though their brightness brings tears streaming from his eyes. He feels like his legs have forgotten how to walk. 

For so long, he’s been wandering through memories and dreams, a shadow trapped inside an echo, watching helplessly as sick reenactments of his worst moments played themselves out. He’d come to think of them as penance, or the closest he could ever come to it without ever seeing Lily or Sammy again, without ever getting the chance to apologize.

His foot catches on a stone and his knees buckle. He pitches forward, expecting pain, anticipating it for the scraped palms, the proof they will provide that he is both alive and human. 

Except before he hits the ground, Sammy is there. 

Jack could have sworn he’d sounded further away, much too far to run past the Devil’s Doorstep - _like an idiot_ \- and catch him, but somehow Sammy is holding him, clutching him close like he’s never going to let him go.

He’s wearing a dull red flannel shirt, which almost convinces Jack that this has to be another illusion because Sammy, for as long as Jack has known him, has never liked flannel. He used to say that it was the casual wear equivalent of leaving your house with your slippers on. 

His hair has gotten longer, too. It’s one of the things that convinces Jack this is real. The Sammy in his memories never altered. He was always just the way Jack remembered him. 

Jack curls his hands into the soft fabric, burying his face into it, and Sammy folds over him, protective and desperate. It’s a snapshot in time, one that has to end sooner rather than later if they’re ever going to escape the Shadowmaker, so Sammy takes his hand, “Let’s go home,” and guides him out of the cave. Soon, there are other hands, other voices, but Jack’s already hit his limit. 

Everything’s too bright, too loud, too much for him to take until…

It’s not. 

The roar of sound around him becomes muffled, the agonizing brightness of the sun streaming through the trees dims. He glances up at Sammy to see him frown in confusion when the people of King Falls continue to keep their distance, and Jack’s heart plummets, because whatever _this_ is, it wasn’t part of the plan. 

The longer the townspeople go without acknowledging them, the stronger the fear in Sammy’s eyes grows. Jack struggles to speak, to ask what's happening, to provide some small measure of comfort, but then he’s being led to a woman who has her back turned to them. 

Sammy practically shoves him at her with a high and panicked shout, “Lily!” 

She turns at the sound of her name and catches him. Now that she's bearing the brunt of his weight, recognition spreads over her features, exploding like a firework, and with it returns the murmuring of the townspeople, the warmth of the sun. Lily whispers his name as if she can hardly believe she isn’t dreaming, which makes for two of them. Seeing her again sends scalding tears rolling down his cheeks, and for a time, the strangeness of what has just happened is forgotten as Jack finally gives in to exhaustion.

* * *

He wakes up in a hospital.

The lights in his room have been dimmed to the point just shy of where Jack knows he’ll start screaming. Every shadow in the corners and edges quickens his breath, sends his heart racing. The panic rises within him, squeezing his ribs, choking him -

“Jack, stop!”

There’s a hand on his arm, fingers pressing into his skin with a grounding pressure, and through the fear threatening to overwhelm him and the tears blurring his vision, Jack sees Sammy. 

His boyfriend.

Wait, no, that wasn’t right.

His _fiancé._

A little more worn, with glaring bruise-colored bags under his eyes, but that’s how Jack knows he’s real. The other Sammy, the version of him the Shadowmaker conjured for the replay of Jack’s Biggest Hits, never aged. 

This Sammy, _his_ Sammy, breathes a sigh of relief when he sees alertness gradually shape his features, and presses his dry, cool lips against his knuckles, whispering into the skin, “You’re free, Jack.” Then he slumps back into his seat where he is dwarfed by the overly large cushions, leaving Jack bereft of his touch. “The whole town worked together to get you out of the Void. Ben, Emily, and Lily came up with the plan and - I honestly still can’t believe it - it _worked._ ”

He exhales again, carding his fingers through the strands of his hair that have slipped out of his bun. This time the air that leaves his mouth hitches and trembles. “You’re really, honestly here. And I was so afraid I was never going to see you again, Jack. I thought I’d lost you for good and it _broke_ me.” He pauses there for a moment, determinedly averting his gaze as he struggles not to lose composure, but Jack can see him fraying, wants nothing more than to find every unraveled edge and stitch them back together. “Broke Lily, too,” Sammy adds with a voice like shattered glass. “We were never the same without you.”

Jack tries and fails to swallow past the lump in his throat. “Lily, is she—”

“She’s okay,” Sammy quickly assures him. “Bit of a rough patch here and there - I mean, she started a podcast. If that’s not a cry for help, I don’t know what…” He trails off at the flat look Jack is giving him, then awkwardly clears his throat. “Anyway. She’s found a good support system in King Falls and I think it’s really helped her. Plus, let’s be honest here, she’s stronger than the pair of us put together.”

“I could have told you that,” Jack says, laughing. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I have. Multiple times.”

It feels good to cover familiar territory like this. The old retorts and gentle barbs roll off easily enough, and that for a precious cut of time it’s like they’ve never been apart. 

And then it’s over. 

Sammy shifts in his seat, falling silent, and Jack feels a pang of guilt at the relief which unfurls within him. The Shadowmaker’s illusions had always been so cool and self-assured, confident and smooth. They’d never wrapped their arms around their knees, never looked at him with the quiet despair of a desert wanderer staring at a mirage. In that moment, Jack realizes that Sammy is just as afraid of having the rug pulled out from under his feet as he is, and the desire to wipe that uncertainty away overpowers his fear. “Speaking of frankly uncharacteristic decisions,” Jack blurts, making Sammy jolt in surprise, “you’re wearing flannel.” Sammy fixes him with an odd look, confusion warring with amusement. Jack forges ahead, “I seem to recall you telling me that not even on pain of death would you, and I quote, ‘Ever sink so low as to let the Levi jeans of shirts into your wardrobe.”

A smirk playing on his lips, Sammy arches a brow. “Five years I’ve waited to hear your voice again and that’s the first thing you say to me? I’m wounded, Wright.” He tugs at a section of fabric so that it sticks out like a tent on his chest and gives it a contemplative glance. “I guess it grew on me. Flannel’s comfy and it just so happens that I like comfy things.” He shrugs. “Also, the nearest mall would literally take a plane ride to get to and, tragedy of tragedies, I just can't spend that kind of cash on keeping up with the trends.”

Jack snorts. “You never cared about that, anyway.”

“I’m a radio host,” Sammy mutters defensively. “As long as I'm providing some measure of entertainment for the good sleep-deprived people of King Falls, who cares how I look?”

“That would explain the man-bun,” Jack teases, delighting in the quiet chuckle it earns him. 

“Yes, well, that _also_ grew on me.”

“Dad jokes? Really, Stevens?” 

Sammy’s flinch is like a bucket of ice water. Anything Jack was about to say starves as his mouth snaps shut. He can imagine what the Shadowmaker has said to Sammy with his voice. Thinking about it now brings with it a sense of immeasurable loss. And on top of that, a rage that boils within him, chasing and consuming every vestige of cold and dark from his veins. 

The Void has already stolen years of their lives together - How _dare_ it take anything else? 

Sammy’s eyes go distant, but before Jack can do more than worry, he shoots him a twitchy, nervous smile, “Listen, Jack, there's someone I've been dying for you to meet.” He cocks his head. “And Lily's here, too.”

Unfurling lanky limbs like an accordion, Sammy slips off the chair to help him arrange his pillows, then turns expectantly to the door just as a young man with curly brown hair and freckles dotting his nose bursts in. 

“You’re awake!” And judging by how ecstatic he seems to see him up, Jack can’t help but wonder if they’ve met before. “I’ve got to tell Sammy—”

Sammy wiggles his fingers in an odd wave. “Present and accounted for, Ben.” 

Ben starts like Sammy had jumped out of a closet, protesting with a hand clapped over his heart, “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” He navigates carefully around the bed as though he’d been planning to wrap Sammy in a fierce hug, then gradually slowed to a stop a good several feet away. Though he doesn’t seem to notice, Sammy frowns. “Where’ve you been, man?”

“I’ve been here the entire time. Where else would I be?” 

Normally, hearing Sammy say that would warm Jack. Now, though, there’s an edge to it he doesn’t understand, a nervousness that seems out of place.

“Really?” After scrubbing at his eyes, Ben admits, “I must be more tired than I thought.” 

“Must be,” Sammy agrees. “Jack, this is my cohost, partner, and best friend, Ben Arnold.”

The kid lights up, glancing at Sammy with such a look of adoration when he slings an arm around his shoulders that to Jack it is obvious that the bond between them can’t be summed up in a sentence. They've experienced something that has broken and shaped and rebuilt them into pieces that fit, and looking at them now, it’s a wonder that the Shadowmaker or anyone else has ever dared to stand in their way. Someday, Jack hopes to learn more about the lives Sammy and Lily have lived while he was gone, the people they’ve met, the struggles they’ve endured. 

Even if he can never get those years back, he’s here now. 

That has to count for something, right? 

The door bursts open wide and in steps his sister, as fiery as ever, her skin shining with a thin sheen of sweat. “Hey, Ben,” she greets a little breathily, as though she’d sprinted up the stairs to the third floor after Sammy had presumably texted her the good news, which she probably had. “Emily’s on her way now and Katie says she’ll be here as soon as her shift ends.” Her gaze softens when it falls on Jack. “Glad to see you finally up. You always did like to sleep in.” She sits down in the chair beside him, the one opposite Sammy’s, and grabs his hand. “I thought you were dead,” she says wetly, her voice like splinters. “I’m so, so sorry, Jack. I should have looked for you sooner. I should have _known_ something wasn’t right.”

“You couldn’t have known, Lily. You can’t blame yourself for what happened. And I know me saying that won’t stop you, so how about you owe me a quarter every time you apologize for something you had no control over? Right now, the pair of you owe me two quarters. A couple more unnecessary apologies and I can get a soda from the vending machine.”

Lily’s brow furrows in confusion. “Stevens? When did he—”

There’s a rush of cold, as though the air conditioner had just kicked on. Sammy’s already making his way to the door, “How about I go and get us some soda?” He steadfastly ignores Lily’s shock at the sight of him, as well as all subsequent attempts to catch his eye. “I think we’ve earned the caffeine.”

Before he can take more than one step outside, Jack asks, “You’re leaving?” 

He doesn’t know what he sounds like, only that the expression on Sammy’s face speaks of pain and he wants it gone. “No, I… Not if you don’t want me to.” 

“Obviously I don’t want you to.” Jack feels his lungs deflate as he lets out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He opens his arms. “Come here.”

“Jack, you don’t… I shouldn’t…”

Ben glances between them, then steps forward, “Sammy, what’s wrong?” And it takes everything for Jack not to bite out a curse because, in spite of his good intentions, all it does is send Sammy further out the door. 

“It’s nothing to worry about,” he says, shaking his head as he backs out of the room, “I’ll be right back,” and he darts into the hall. Jack half-expects Ben to chase after Sammy, but instead he settles into the recently vacated armchair like nothing had happened. It’s so normal, so utterly unfazed, that a sickening pit of dread cracks open in Jack’s stomach. 

He should have trusted his instincts.

Instead, he'd stayed silent on the matter, rationalizing that it’s been years, so maybe this sort of behavior was normal now? After all, Lily and Ben weren't acting like this was anything out of the ordinary.

It’s a good fifteen minutes before he gathers up the courage to ask, “Does it usually take this long to get drinks from the vending machine?”

Ben, looking immediately chastened, jumps to his feet. “Sorry, are you thirsty? I can get you something—”

“No, don’t worry about it. Sammy’s getting us sodas, remember?”

Sammy’s cohost, his partner, his best friend, blinks in surprise. “Wait… Sammy’s here?”

It doesn’t take Lily long to put the pieces together. Her expression of horror matches his own. 

“Well, shit.”

Jack’s already throwing off the sheets. “Help me out of bed, Ben. We have to find him.” 

Over Lily’s protests, he tears off the patches monitoring his vitals from his chest and climbs down. Even though there should be a nurse or a doctor rushing in to check on him after their patient had ostensibly flatlined, no one comes to stop him from chasing after Sammy. They wouldn’t have been able to keep him in bed, anyway, but the utter lack of a response sets his teeth on edge.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if something’s happened to Sammy. 

Sammy was so incredibly, unbelievably strong all that time he’d been trapped in the Void but, as selfish as it might sound, Jack never wants to know if he can be that strong.

Ben takes the majority of his weight as they hobble through the eerily empty hospital hallways. There’s mist blanketing the floor, clinging to their clothes and raising goosebumps on their flesh. 

Lily strides over to the desk to check the security cameras. “There’s activity on the other floors,” she reports back to them. “I can see nurses, doctors, patients.” She pauses, worrying her lip. “It’s just here where it seems like everyone’s decided to up and vanish. Patients are still in their rooms, though, so at least there’s that.”

Jack guesses that’s good news. Hopefully, this means that the hospital staff had been compelled to leave, as opposed to simply up and vanishing. It was probably too much to hope that they had all decided to go on their lunch break at the same time. “Do you see Sammy?”

“Yeah, actually.” Lily hesitates. “He’s standing by the vending machines.”

Stifling a groan of frustration, Jack replies, “Can you tell me how he’s doing? Does he look like he's okay, at least?”

Instead of responding right away, she jogs out from behind the desk to help Ben support Jack as they made their way down the hall. “There’s no time,” she says urgently, quickening their pace. “Something really weird is happening and Stevens is literally in the middle of it, so we have to _go._ ”

They find him where Lily said he would be, staring blankly through the glass, the rise and fall of his chest so shallow and unhurried it’s like he’s barely breathing at all. The mist surrounding him is denser, swallowing him, and his skin where they can see it is translucent to the point where the bright light from the vending machine shines through his limbs and through his clothes, as though he isn’t really there at all. 

He doesn’t react when Jack and Ben call out to him, doesn’t even seem to hear them. 

Even as they watch, he fades, becoming an outline of himself, and Jack lunges forward, grasping blindly for something to hold onto within the mist. He catches Sammy’s wrist. At the same time, Ben latches onto his shirt and Lily grabs him by the front, and as one they pull him from the swirling fog, prying him free of its clinging tendrils. 

Once rid of it, Sammy begins to shiver. Violet, full-body shivers that rattle his teeth. 

“Jack?” He sounds groggy, small and unsure and so far removed from his usual confident sass that it takes all of Jack’s self-control not to crumble and weep. 

“It’s me, Sammy.” Jack holds him close, rubbing his hands up and down Sammy’s arms in an attempt to force some warmth back into his skin. "I'm here." 

The nurses and doctors return soon after, but even with the additional blankets Lily requests for him and the coffee Ben fetches from the cafeteria, Sammy's lips stubbornly retain their bluish hue for hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a quote I've seen floating around that says something along the lines of, 'the loneliness of missing someone who never truly left.' I can't remember if there's more to it, only that it's always stuck with me. 
> 
> You see, I enjoy writing ghosts stories. When love is hampered by absence, by distance or death or loss, and finds a way, regardless - when the lonely find their way home - that's my favorite kind of ghost story.


	2. Conduction

Between Jack’s visceral reaction to dark spaces and Sammy’s recently discovered inability to retain body heat like every other warm-blooded mammal on the planet, the electric bill they rack up shortly after moving out of Ben’s apartment soon becomes astronomical. 

There are days when Jack can’t believe he escaped the Void. He’ll look at Sammy sleeping beside him with a grief that claws, convinced that their life is a dream and any moment Sammy will turn cruel and cutting, until the illusion collapses when the Shadowmaker’s mocking laughter reverberating through the remembered walls of their home exposes the ruse.

Sometimes, Sammy will reach for him without thinking and stop just short of contact, his face twisted with quiet, aching despair. And Jack, unable to help himself, will try to bridge the remaining distance, to wrap his hands around Sammy’s bloodless fingers and coax the warmth back into them. 

That is, until he sees the skin begin to grow red and inflamed beneath his fingertips. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” He demands.

“It’s probably a good sign if it hurts,” Sammy says, shrugging the whole thing off, as usual. He hasn’t been making much sense lately, and every time Jack tries to push him on it, he conveniently becomes distracted. By the time he remembers, Sammy is gone. Sammy is gone even though Jack never saw him leave and it’s _hours_ \- hours of phone calls and pacing and worry - before Sammy comes home wracked with tremors, with saltwater in his hair and windburn on his cheeks.

There are no beaches within driving distance of King Falls. Even so, Jack doesn’t ask where he was or how he got there. He doesn’t push.

Let it never be said that Jack Wright does not learn from his mistakes.

Instead, he pretends to let it go, pretends to accept this constant uncertainty and fear as their new reality, and starts writing in a new journal. 

It’s on one of the nights when the air conditioner can’t warm their apartment fast enough, when the nightlight can’t shine bright enough, that Sammy interrupts the quiet of the midnight hour with a recollection from his high school days, and even though Jack is so exhausted he can barely keep his eyes open, he knows he would go sleepless for weeks if it meant they could speak to each other the way they used to, often and without effort, so he stays silent and he listens.

“Chemistry was my worst class.” Sammy’s rueful chuckle is muffled by the pillow pressed against his cheek. “All that math, all those theories… Who had the attention span for that kind of thing?” The thought of a teenage Sammy doodling in his paper margins brings a soft smile to Jack’s face. “But I remember when we learned about conduction. It really wasn’t anything special, thinking back. I just thought it was weird how ice cubes don’t actually make things colder? I mean, they do, obviously, but not without getting warmer themselves. It’s like they’re stealing heat or- or trading it.” With only the nightlight’s dim illumination to go by, Jack can’t make out whatever expression Sammy is wearing. It takes all of his self-restraint not to reach over and turn on the lamp. “That probably sounds incredibly boring, but I never thought of heating and cooling in the same way after that.” His fingers brush over the back of Jack’s hand, icicles on his skin, and even though does Jack does his very best not to shiver, Sammy hastily withdraws his hand. As though it burns - _it does._ “I don’t want to steal your heat, Jack. I’m dying to give you mine but I don’t have much to give. Wrapping my arms around you will only make you colder, which is literally the last thing I want, so I don't know what...” He sighs, sinking deeper into the mattress with a resigned huff. “We’ll just have to get you an electric blanket or something before you freeze.”

Jack rests a hand on his sleeve, both to comfort him and to reassure himself that Sammy is present and solid and real. “I don’t mind freezing if it means you’ll wrap your arms around me,” he says lightly.

To his relief, Sammy responds in kind, “You won’t be saying that after you get sick.”

“If that happens, then you can nurse me back to health. It’s a win-win situation.”

That one, normal interaction feels like a victory. A sign that what is fractured between them is healing, and one day the scars left behind from the manipulations and deception of the Void will fade. 

Jack should have known better.

He wakes up the next morning feeling well-rested and downright toasty beneath the weight of an electric blanket, but none of that matters when the side of the bed opposite him is empty, without even the vaguest impression of a body left it the sheets to remind him that there was anyone there sleeping beside him to begin with. 

_I love you_ , he mouths into the space on the pillow where Sammy’s head should be, and breathes in traces of seawater and fog.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> We are inching ever closer to that happy ending I promised, but first you must be sad


	3. Vanishing Acts

Sammy’s car keys and cell are sitting on the coffee table when Jack returns from the kitchen with a cup of coffee. He stares uncomprehendingly at them, mug cooling in his grip, then strides briskly towards the bedroom, gripped by the desire to wrap Sammy in the biggest hug he can muster and then strangle him for leaving without a word and scaring him out of his mind. 

They are going to talk about this. They are going to have a long talk and then they are going to figure something out because if nothing changes then one of these days Sammy is going to disappear and he isn’t ever going to come back. 

Jack finds his clothes discarded on the bed - a pair of jeans and a crumbled shirt - and hears the sound of rushing water emanating from the bathroom shower. 

“Hey, Sammy?” He calls out, even though he knows Sammy can’t hear him. When there’s no response, he stands by the bedside and traces the edges of a brand new gash in the right leg of his pants. Other tears and rips catch his eye, all of them protruding as though they’d been hooked on some piece of equipment. He brushes the white flecks of rusted paint embedded in the threads, wracking his brain for something Sammy has done or said that could give him some clue where they came from. 

He’s distracted enough that the first couple rings of Sammy’s cell go unheard. The third ring cuts through the haze of his frustration and worry, and he rushes out into the living room, snatching up the device before it gets to a fourth, “Yes, hello?!” Praying that whoever’s on the other end doesn’t hang up on him, he makes himself add in a calmer tone, “Sorry about that. This is Jack Wright.”

No Caller ID glows on the screen. 

“My apologies,” an older gentleman replies smoothly in a crisp, upper-class accent. “I was under the impression that this number belonged to Sammy Stevens, but perhaps I was mist—”

“It does,” Jack grabs a pen and a pad of paper. “I’m his… May I ask who I’m speaking to?”

“Oh, of course. I’m Peter Lukas. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Well, Mr. Lukas—”

“Call me Peter, please.”

“Peter,” Jack corrects without skipping a beat, “since Sammy’s not able to come to the phone right now, why don’t I take a message?” 

There’s a short pause in the conversation where Jack waits with bated breath, pen at the ready, and then, “I suppose he hasn’t told you about our little club, then?”

The pen scores the pad with a jerky slash. Jack tightens his grip on the cell, not liking the smugness he’s picking on beneath the outward veneer of concern. “I’m sorry?” Despite his best efforts, he feels frustration leak into his words. “Would you like to expand on that, Peter?”

“Well, it’s rather exclusive, so I can’t say I’m surprised he’s kept it from you.” 

“Again, what exactly are you trying to imply?” He pinches the bridge of his nose with a noisy sigh, then decides to take a risk. “Look,” he says, intentionally sounding as though he’s at the end of his rope and about a second away from hanging up, “I’ve had a very trying couple weeks that I’d rather not go into with a complete stranger, so if there’s nothing useful you’d like to share with the class, I think it’d be best for both of us if you called back another time.”

Peter chuckles. It’s pleasant and grandfatherly, but so utterly false that it only serves to put Jack further on his guard. “Now, let’s not get hasty. I only meant that if he hasn’t told you about his extracurricular activities then it’s not my place to do so. However, if you simply must know—” Cold gathers around Jack, pressing against him like a quilt, but before he can do more than acknowledge it, the phone is snatched out of Jack’s hands, taking the chill with it. 

Soaking wet and wrapped in a towel, Sammy presses the speaker to his ear with an expression of fury, “That’s enough, Peter. Stop calling my house, stop harassing my fiancé, and cut it out with the mind games or I’m blocking your number,” then ends the call and tosses the phone aside, his steps already taking him back to their room. 

Jack jogs after him. “Are you going to tell me who that was?”

Sammy shoots him a stormy look. “With how much you and Ben love to keep me out of the loop, I’d say I’ve more than earned the right to a couple secrets of my own, wouldn’t you?” 

Jack stops short at the threshold, biting his lip as Sammy violently yanks on a clean shirt then pulls a pair of sweats out of the drawer without looking to see who they belong to. This isn’t about Lily or journals or secrets. It’s about pushing him away, it’s about finding insecurities and other cracks and fissures so that Jack will stay far enough away for Sammy to disappear, and that’s not going to happen. 

It’s no coincidence that Sammy’s getting ready to leave after Lukas called, which means Jack is one step closer to finding a way to help him.

“What do you think would happen if we turned the lights off?”

Sammy stops struggling to get his sweats past his knees long enough to look confused by the question. “It’s the middle of the day, so… nothing?” Jack rolls his eyes. It’s a rare sunny day in King Falls, but that wasn’t what he'd meant and they both knew it. Scowling at the ground, Sammy says, “There’s just no reason to risk it. To risk _you_.”

Matching his scowl, Jack crosses his arms over his chest. “You can’t honestly think I’m planning on spending the rest of my life going to sleep with a nightlight.”

“Why not? It’s a small price to pay for not getting sucked back into the Void.” Standing there with long locks of his sandy brown hair dripping down his back, twisting his engagement nervously around his finger, Sammy looks miserable, young, and lost. “It’s not that I don’t think you should or that I don’t think you can, it’s just… If we turn the light off, and the Void takes you again… I don't think... I _can't_...” In a blink, Jack crosses the room to stand directly in front of him - he barely even remembers moving - then gathers up his hands, clasping them between his own and suppressing a shiver. When Sammy comes back to himself with a shudder, there’s a wry quirk to his mouth. “Has all this talk of turning the lights off just been a ploy of yours to try and get me to open up?”

“Well, the nightlight thing’s definitely a goal,” Jack admits with a shrug, “but, you know… baby steps. I’ve learned my lesson about rushing headfirst when it comes to dealing with forces that operate beyond the realm of human understanding.” 

A watery laugh escapes Sammy. 

“I’m worried about you, though. Ben and Emily and Lily and Troy, we’re all—”

“Nice try with the guilt there,” Sammy cuts him off bitterly, “but half the time they don’t even realize I’m gone.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. And it’s terrifying.” Guilt flashes over Sammy’s face. “If you could see their faces the other half of the time when they remember, when they realize… If you would just talk to them, I’m sure—”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sammy tells him darkly, and Jack kind of wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him, because if anyone can understand what he’s going through, it’d be the guy who was abducted from his home by a shadow monster, transported halfway around the world, and held prisoner for five years. Upon seeing the glint of genuine hurt and anger in his eyes, Sammy looks ashamed. “I'm sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know that what I went through isn’t exactly the same as what you’re going through right now, but that doesn’t mean you can just shut me out.” This is starting to feel like one of their older arguments. Jack wraps his arms around himself, gesturing sadly to the half-made bed, the discarded clothes, “I can’t keep waking up with you gone. I can’t keep dreading that you’ll disappear every time I shut my eyes.” 

Sammy’s expression briefly shutters, “You get used to it after a while.” Even though they’re standing in the same room, merely an arm’s length away, the distance between them feels insurmountable. “Has it occurred to you that maybe- maybe there’s a good reason why I haven’t told you anything? That maybe I’m not keeping secrets _just_ to be an idiot?”

Gears turn in Jack’s head, gaining speed. 

Careful not to tip Sammy off to the maelstrom brewing within him, Jack asks evenly, “Is Peter Lukas threatening you, Sammy?” And when he doesn’t answer, when the color drains from Sammy’s face, leaving him looking ashen and frightened and cornered even though he’s home - he’s home and it’s just the two of them and nothing should ever make Sammy feel like this - it’s all the confirmation Jack needs.

“Where is he, Sammy?” It comes out in a growl, barely even intelligible.

Sammy breathes in shakily, tugging at his hair. The AC kicks on, loud and rumbling, followed by a shrill burst of static from the television and radio.“Shit.” Sammy pulls away from Jack, who reluctantly lets him. “Can he hear this?” He switches off the television and the radio, muttering under his breath, “Oh, sure, he can’t figure out how to send a mass email to his employees, but listening in on a conversation across dimensions? Well, that’s right in his wheelhouse, isn’t it?” Laughter, high and bitter and hopeless, spills past his lips.

Jack spots the exact moment Sammy realizes he’s still watching him. He stiffens, hands twitching at his sides, then slowly turns around, “You have to get away from me.” That’s not going to happen. Not in a million years. Jack steps towards him with the notepad and journal he’d snatched up while Sammy had been turning off their haunted appliances, the words of complete and utter refusal poised at the tip of his tongue, when Sammy throws down his arms and shouts, “Leave, Jack!”

And he does. 

While Sammy is too shocked to speak, Jack leaves the house, as though he’d just remembered there were groceries he needed to buy at the market. As though his fiance wasn’t there watching him grab his car keys and walk away with muted horror. 

After the door slams shut, after the car engine starts in the driveway, Sammy calls out uncertainly, “Jack?” His knees buckle. “Jack, please, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Though the mist rolling over the carpet presses against him, curling and pulling, Sammy waits with his head bowed for Jack to drive away. 

Seconds stretch to minutes, long enough for Sammy to raise his head in confusion. 

Even when you haven’t been behind the wheel in five years, how long does it take to pull out of a driveway? 

Soon as the thought enters Sammy’s head, a frantic knocking comes at the door, followed by the scraping of the key in the lock, and the door bursts open. Disheveled and frantic, Jack stumbles into the house, his sights set on Sammy. His voice sounds like wood chips when he breathes, “No,” and lunges forward, catching Sammy around the neck, the shoulders, the head, anywhere he can grab and hold and keep so the love of his life doesn’t fade away.

“I think I made you forget me,” Sammy whispers, numb. He hasn’t realized what Jack has, that his limbs are translucent, that he’s more mist than anything.

Jack grips him more fiercely, anchoring him. “Never. Again.”

Sammy’s countenance takes on a look of concentration as the fog circling him thickens, consuming what’s left with a ravenous appetite even as it gropes for more. Feeling the chill of the mist as it rolls over his legs, Jack continues with increased desperation, “I don’t know what this is but it can’t have you.” Is it his imagination or has some light return to Sammy’s eyes? “I won’t let anyone or anything take you away from me, so don’t you dare give up!”

When the chilling cloud envelopes them, Jack can no longer feel Sammy in his arms. 

He’s not sitting in their house anymore, but walking down a road that never ends. He knows that he will be walking down this road forever, without ever seeing another soul, and some part of him thinks it might be easier to stop walking, to let the mist overwhelm him and rest, but he keeps going, keeps calling out for Sammy, until finally a familiar voice calls out of the fog, “You’ve still got that fire, Jack. You can beat this. There’s nothing you can’t do.”

“If you really believe that,” Jack pushes past clenched teeth, “then you have to know that I’m going to keep you.” He thinks about his sister and the people in King Falls and Sammy’s friends and how they all worked together to pull him out of the Void, how he can’t possibly waste their efforts by getting swallowed up now.

“I can’t stay here,” Jack says aloud. It strikes like a revelation. The mist begins to thin and when it does, Jack knows deep in his core that he’s not alone. That he never was.

He turns around to find Sammy staring back at him, wearing a bittersweet smile full of pride. 

“Come on, Jack,” Sammy reaches out to take his hand, pretending not to notice when his palm parts like vapor around the surface of Jack's skin, “I’ll take you home.”.

* * *

Not long after Sammy guides Jack out of the Lonely and back to their apartment, a feat which would have been extremely difficult - maybe even impossible if Jack hadn’t been so close to breaking out already, he gets a text from Lily. 

She’s inviting him out to _Rose’s Diner._

He’s not sure how much Jack has told her about his vanishing acts, and so isn’t sure how murderous Lily is likely to be when she sees him, but guesses that this has to be some kind of intervention because why else would she ask for him to come alone?

According to the message, Lily’s already saved them a booth. 

Lukas is waiting for him in the Lonely, Sammy knows, but his phone call earlier was more of a power play than anything. A reminder that Sammy’s world can come collapsing around his ears on a whim and there’s nothing he can do to stop it, so why fight it? Why not just come when he’s called and make the best of whatever semblance of a life he has left?

You know what? Enough of this.

Sammy’s gone toe-to-toe with corrupt mayors, six-inch voiced sheriffs, and gaslighting jerks, so it’s going to take more than some spoiled pirate-wannabe to push him around.

He shoves the phone roughly into his pocket and turns down the path from his apartment, leaving Jack fast asleep in their room in the feeble hope that Sammy will somehow manage to get back in time to be there when he wakes, and if he’s not, well…

Whatever happens, Sammy’s already decided he’s not going to live in fear anymore. 

Traveling through the Lonely is too much of a risk when he’s avoiding Lukas and the rest of his crew, so he takes his car down to the diner, making use of normal human transportation for the first time in what feels like a while. The familiar roads, the texture of the wheel underneath his hands, it’s all strangely calming which, of course, means the ride is practically over in an instant.

He spots Lily through the diner’s windows and waves. When she waves back, he’s half-tempted to make his eyes bug out and say something like, “You can see me?” And has to bite his hand to suppress the hysterical giggle crawling up his throat at the thought.

There’s a pleasant ding from the bell when Sammy enters, and Dwayne looks up from the milkshake he and Kevin are sharing in their booth towards the back. They share an awkward greeting, which is the best they can do when they have to be civil in public and actually are kind of friends, even though one of them is a vigilante who likes to run around in silly spandex, making things needlessly difficult for law enforcement, and the other is technically in service to a terrifying fear entity.

Sammy stops mid-stride. 

Hold on… Does that mean he’s a supervillain?

The hysteria that had been threatening before slips out before he can clap a hand over his mouth. Kevin raises an eyebrow, shooting him a look of concern that feels like the heat of a relatively mild sunburn on his skin. 

Sammy sinks into Lily’s booth before he can cause any more of a scene. Spider-web earrings frame her face, their edges brushing against the slope of her neck. To the best of Sammy’s knowledge, she’s never been a fan of costume jewelry. “What do you think?” She asks when she catches him staring at the spinning webs.

“They’re nice. Just didn’t take them for your style.” He pauses before adding, “Also, it’s nowhere close to October.”

Lily smirks at him over the rim of her glass of water. “It’s not a phase, Dad.”

She orders them each a plate of pancake puppies, which Sammy can’t bring himself to decline even though he’s not really hungry. If he’s being honest, he hasn’t felt thirst or hunger in… a truly concerning amount of time. Not in the traditional sense, at least. 

There’s something there, something growing, but whatever it is, he doubts pancake puppies are going to satisfy it. Still, it’s not like they’re going to hurt, right?

“Jack’s been worried sick about you,” Lily says after her third bite. “You know that, don’t you?” It’s not exactly news. Some of what he’s thinking must show on his face because she sets her silverware down with a heavy sigh. “You’re a big boy, Stevens, so I’m not going to lecture you on self-care or anything, but I need you to know that if there’s anything I can do to help, I’m here for you.” Out of everything Sammy had expected her to say, which admittedly leaned towards several variations of the shovel talk, the sincerity of the statement takes him by surprise. They didn’t do sincerity. Jack, maybe. Ben, definitely. But as for him and Lily? They were a fortress of coping mechanisms shaped like a person and that was just fine by them.

Seeing his shock and disbelief, Lily has the gall to laugh. “Jack’s my brother, Sammy, and I love him. Getting him back after I thought I’d lost him has given me hope that good things actually do happen.” Grinning, she gestured towards herself. “Look at me, I’m a changed woman.” There was a beat where they both processed that one. “Okay, I’m a work-in-progress,” she amended wryly, “but my point is - Just because Jack is back doesn’t mean we have to go back to ignoring each other. You’re my best frenemy, Sammy. You’re like the Joker to my Batman.”

“Okay. Pump the brakes. If anyone here’s going to be the supervillain, it’s you.” Prior realizations of potential villainy aside, there is no way he is ever going to be the Joker to Lily’s Batman. “ _Wright On_ is 100% the moniker of a crazed English teacher who forces kids to write essays until their hands fall off. You know it, I know it, the whole world knows it.”

Lily gives him a flat look. “Stop making it so hard for me to be nice to you.” 

She stuffs another pancake puppy into her mouth, swallowing it down with a gulp of orange juice. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re my best frenemy, too.”

“I am your _only_ frenemy, Stevens.”

“...Are we counting Herschel?”

“How about The Dark?” Sammy doesn’t think he’s going to like where she’s going with this. “I’ve heard your little chats on the radio and there is some serious UST going on between you guys. Should Jack be worried?”

“What?!” A couple tables towards the back, Dwayne’s sweet tea goes down the wrong pipe. He abruptly begins hacking up a lung while his fiance pats his back and visibly struggles not to laugh. “Absolutely not, Lily! For one thing, he’s a criminal, for another I’m engaged, and have I mentioned yet that he’s a criminal?” Sammy doesn’t even have to chance another glance at Dwayne’s table to know he’s going to be getting another call-in from The Dark tonight. Fantastic. 

Lily’s clearly enjoying herself, though. She’s wiping tears of mirth from her eyes when the waitress comes by with their bill. “Excuse me, miss,” Lily says before she leaves, holding the bill in her hand, “do you think I could split this?”

The waitress offers her a blank stare. “With who?”

It’s amazing how quickly the world can come crashing down when you’re not paying attention. 

“She’s splitting it with me,” Sammy insists, but the waitress doesn’t react to his voice. Neither, for that matter, does Lily. “Lily, I’m right here.” 

On impulse, he grabs his cup of water and hurls it at the window, but when every patron in the diner turns to find the source of the splash, their attention feels like a thousand staring eyes, each of them peering into his soul with razor sharpness, as though slicing it open and observing the insides. The mist rises up to meet him, offering relief, offering salvation from the gazes boring into him, and he lets it take him. 

Sammy Stevens vanishes quietly and is forgotten before the first drop of water reaches the floor.

* * *

_There is a wanderer in the Lonely._

_He feeds their god, though he does not belong to it. He is searching through the mist for someone who is lost._

_Sammy thinks he remembers what that was like, so he follows him without making his presence known, and would have continued doing so until the wanderer with the silver circular scars either found who he was looking for or gave up, had he not turned, pinning Sammy down in the fog with a gaze that scalds._

 _"I see you."_


	4. Intersection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sammy crosses paths with someone who doesn't belong.

Without day or night or any physical needs to take care of, time passes unnoticed. The inhabitants of the Lonely rarely cross paths - it would rather defeat the purpose of isolating them in the first place - and so by the time Sammy stumbles upon the stranger who draws attention like a lighthouse, he has no idea how long it’s been since he’s interacted with anyone.

Before the man forced him to take shape, defined his blurred edges and stripped away the mist, Sammy had observed the streaks of premature gray in his unkempt hair, the sunken hollows beneath days of stubble on his cheeks, the desperate focus in his eyes. He stared through the fog as though it presented no obstacle to him, and maybe it didn’t, because from the way he stepped confidently as he traversed the barren roads and beaches, it made no more difference than a tear to a river.

Whatever it is he’s looking for, it’s only a matter of time until he finds it. There’s a determination in him that Sammy has witnessed only twice before in his lifetime, which means he knows better than most how there’s absolutely nothing that can stop this man from now. Might as well try to stop an avalanche with a toothpick.

Thinking about Ben sets off an ache within Sammy, as though he’s exercised a muscle that’s begun to atrophy. The stranger is older than Ben, but not by much. Not enough to justify the lines of exhaustion etched into his face or the patchwork of scars decorating every inch of exposed skin. He is focused and he is fraying, coiled and poised to fly apart. 

There’s a tape recorder in his pocket that turns with a quiet hum. This continues until the man’s piercing gaze falls on Sammy with an intensity that borders on painful, at which point the hum is suffused with screeching static, hungry and grasping.

Just because this man does not belong to the Lonely does not mean he isn’t feeding a god.

_“I see you.”_

Though it takes a moment for Sammy to understand that he’s being spoken to, the command in the statement is as clear as its effects. It exposes him, strips away any protection he might have had and lays him bare. When all’s said and done, Sammy won’t say he’s feeling particularly appreciative, but there’s no telling how much of the pushback is coming from him and how much of it stems from his patron. 

Whatever the case, he briefly plays with the idea of remaining stubbornly mum until the smallish man with the college professor aesthetic gets bored enough to move on, only to find himself coughing up words against his will when the stranger asks with a crackle of static, _“Who are you?”_

“Sammy Stevens,” he grits out, adding with a pointed look, “You didn’t need to force it out of me. I would have told you that much.” Probably.

Cat’s out of the bag now, in any case, though it was hardly much of a secret.

Shaking his head with a rueful chuckle, he offers a hand in a wordless truce. As far as he’s concerned, whoever this guy has a bone to pick with, it isn’t him and it isn’t ever going to _be_ him. “That was a pretty neat trick, actually. I’d ask you to teach it to me, but I’m sure you’ve got places to be and, if I’m being honest, I’m not really all that interested.” He waves a hand dismissively to emphasize the point.

The man seems to consider his words for a moment, his stiff posture relaxing minutely. 

“Jonathan Sims.” 

Sammy raises a brow at the unexpected admission, and Jon ruefully adds, “You told me yours. It’s only fair.” So he’s interested in fairness. Good to know. “And it wasn’t a trick, as I’m sure you know. I serve the Eye.” There’s a certain gravitas to the way he says it, as though he’s just confessed to something terrible, and judging by the tension flooding him once more, the resignation, he fully expects Sammy to react accordingly. 

It would be so easy not to trust him, to keep floating aimlessly through the void where heartache is nothing but a distant memory, but for better or worse, it’s never been in Sammy’s nature to ignore someone in need. “You say that like it should mean something to me,” he replies with deliberate nonchalance and takes some satisfaction from the look of bewilderment it earns him. “Oh, you’d be shocked by how much I don’t know. My captain,” at this point, it’s impossible to keep the disgust out of his voice, “hasn’t exactly made it a point to keep me in the loop. By the way, that’s…”

“I know who Peter Lukas is,” Jon snaps, though he immediately looks contrite.

Sammy lets it roll over him, the corners of his mouth curling into a sharp-edged grin. “Guess I should apologize, then.”

As Jon’s softly glowing eyes brighten, the feeling of being watched grows more intense and Sammy feels his grin become strained under its weight. “Whatever for?”

No compulsion that time. Interesting. “Well, you’ve met him. That alone warrants a pretty significant apology. Now, if he spoke to you, that’s practically worth compensation. Unfortunately, I left my wallet in another plane of existence, so a heartfelt apology will have to do.”

“Don’t tell me - He hired you to apologize for his behavior on his behalf?”

“If he had, I’d be working full-time with zero benefits.” Sammy considers that for a moment. "On second thought..."

Jon must see some hint of his internal musings in his face because the ghost of a smile drifts over his features, softening a decade of strife and pain. Seeing this compels Sammy to think about impossible things, like what it might be like to be Jon’s friend.

Soon enough, though, Jon's relentless search continues. Sammy follows wordlessly, listening for movement in the mist, the rustle of fabric that would betray another presence. Buildings fall away as the barren roads they travel turn to sand beneath their feet, soft and malleable. 

That’s what it always comes back, isn’t it? The lonely sea.

Waves ebb and flow to a steady, unbroken rhythm. White foam clings to the shore, clusters of bubbles and clumps of slick seaweed forming easily avoidable obstacles that nonetheless pose the threat of separating them should they stray too far from the waterline or from each other.

When the silence begins to grow too comfortable, Sammy does his best to break it for both their sakes, “I never wanted to believe in any of this, you know.” Jon pauses in his pursuit long enough to side-eye him. Sammy shrugs. “All this talk of ghosts and werewolves and monsters sounded like complete and utter nonsense. But—” 

“But when Jack was taken by the Dark,” Sammy starts at the sound of his thoughts flowing from Jon’s mouth, “you didn’t have a choice.” Jon grips the cuffs of his sleeves until the dark skin bordering his scars greys to match the palmprint curled around his hand. “Denying the existence of monsters doesn’t stop them from knocking down your door. Believe me, I’ve tried it.” Taking in his companion’s stunned reaction, his eyes widen, first in sudden comprehension and then in horror. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. It just happens, sometimes.”

He blurts out so quickly and with so much fear that Sammy rushes to reassure him, “No, don’t worry about it. It makes it easier, actually.” Whatever reaction Jon had braced himself for, it wasn’t calm acceptance, and somehow seeing that sends a pang of sympathy through Sammy. Jon wears his scars as though they mark him as something tainted, something unnatural and dangerous, and even though Sammy has only just met him, he knows intuitively that he’s wrong.

If they mark Jon as anything, it’s as a survivor, though that's a burden in its own right.

No one likes to be left behind.

“So,” Sammy starts with deliberate casualness, folding his arms behind his head the way he might if he and Ben were shooting the breeze, “you can, what, read my mind Charles Xavier-style?”

“Hardly,” Jon scoffs. “More like I can suddenly and without prompting Know things that happen to be tangentially related to what you’re thinking about, and often not very useful.” 

In spite of his disparaging tone, Sammy voices his appreciation with a low whistle. “Remind me to invite you to Trivia Night, sometime. Be nice to give the local librarian a bit of competition.” 

The wind picks up, whipping their hair and clothes, and though they notice the change, it doesn’t faze them.

“How are you so present?” Beneath the curiosity is a desire for knowledge that rages through Jon like a fever. Sammy hears an electric hum in his ears, feels words rise up his throat unbidden. He clamps his mouth shut to prevent them from gushing out. “Everyone else I’ve encountered here has been much too detached and, well, insubstantial to be of any help.”

Sammy waits until the compulsion fades, long enough for Jon to grow concerned by his abrupt reticence. He honestly hopes Jon doesn’t know he’s doing it, in which case, what would be the point in telling him? “I wasn’t all that different until you started stirring the pot. You don’t exactly blend in. No one else asks questions, for one.” Okay, so he couldn’t help dropping a hint or two.

“Of course.” Jon placed a hand on his chin, already tuning him out. “You’re an avatar of the Lonely. I suppose even the Lukas family must change with the times, eventually.”

Sammy gives the side of his head a scratch. “I guess I must be. Not a very good one, though. Got myself eaten by my own god.” He pauses to play those words over in his mind, then adds, “That’s certainly something I never thought I’d hear myself say.”

“You know, some would argue the best kind of avatars are those who allow themselves to be consumed by their gods.” When the wind picks up again, a shiver wracks Jon’s thin frame. It draws attention to the collar bones protruding under his shirt, the way his skin stretches in places as though there’s not enough of it to cover his bones. Were he lacking those supernatural gifts he possesses, would he even be able to stand? Though it goes against his current nature, Sammy drifts closer to his side. “Those who allow their patrons to feed on them rather than sacrifice others in their stead.”

If Jon wasn’t already in service to another Power, he would have made an excellent servant of the Lonely. Even now, Sammy can feel despair emanate from him, knows instinctively what he could say to make it worse. To rub salt into the wound until Jon rushed into the open arms of the Lonely to escape the pain. 

He wrenches his gaze away, squeezing his eyes shut, though it does nothing to stop the sadness, the regret, the guilt so sweet it might as well be nectar. “No one threw you in here.” He doesn’t open his eyes to see Jon’s reaction, but the flood of despair eases. “You came here on your own, didn’t you? What were you hoping to accomplish?”

Remind him why he’s here. Remind him who he’s fighting for.

Anything so Jon doesn’t keep thinking about whatever was on his mind just then. 

“I’m looking for someone.” 

Jon stares into the perpetual dusk, absorbing every detail, every shift of the sands and sea. “Martin Blackwood. He’s in his late twenties, roughly your height, with brown hair and brown eyes. It is imperative that I find Martin before he is lost to the Lonely for good.” And maybe it’s the place, but seeing his desperation brings Sammy back to the months he’d spent in New York after Jack disappeared. Every day he’d gone through the motions, though not well. He’d shown up late to work more often than not, and that was if he’d shown up at all. Weeks of barely sleeping, of pouring over every snippet of information on King Falls he could find, and then he’d bought out his contract, packed up, and moved. 

A world without Jack Wright wasn’t one he’d wanted to live in, and if Jon is suffering now what he had suffered then, what Ben had suffered when Emily was abducted, then how can he ignore that?

It’s not even a choice. “I’ll help you.” 

Hearing that gets Jon attention like nothing else has. “I haven’t run into anyone going by that name, but like you mentioned, we’re not exactly a talkative bunch in these parts.” Though his muscles rebel against it, Sammy reaches out across the short distance between them to give Jon’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. 

He didn’t expect Jon to stare at his hand as though it had appeared there by magic, shock and disbelief and awe mixing with tentative, blooming hope. “This place hasn’t claimed the whole of you yet. There’s still time.” When Sammy doesn’t react, he explains with an energy that borders on manic, “You don’t have to stay here. You can go home.” It all sounds too good to be true. While Sammy struggles to process what he’s hearing, Jon furrows his brow, apparently deep in thought. “Cronkite. Brokaw. Ben Arnold.” If he hears Sammy's sharp inhale, he doesn’t show any sign of it. “The Strength. The Heart. The One.” When he finishes, Jon’s expression falters. “Sorry. Does any of that... mean anything to you?”

“Jon,” Sammy says breathlessly, “it means _everything_ to me.” 

Pins and needles spread through his limbs. He’s spent enough time cold and numb that thawing out now could only ever be painful, but like warming up by a fireplace it’s a necessary pain, one that he embraces.

“Think about them. Focus on what you can remember.” Jon’s hands fold over his own, clasping it tightly so as to serve as an anchor while he pushes towards the shore. Emily’s impossible rescue comes back to him, the pride Sammy had felt when Ben had taken on the world to bring her back pulsing behind his ribs, always present. Emily Potter, who’s proven herself time and time again to be one of the bravest people he knows. Lily, a force of nature who never lets Sammy get away with being anything less than his best. And Jack. Jack, who has his whole heart and always will. “You’re going to find them again, Sammy Stevens. I believe that. I know it.” 

The sea level has risen during the time they’ve been standing still. Their feet are completely submerged now. Sammy can feel movement in the mist. 

One look at Jon confirms that he can feel it, too.

“What about you?” The fog is already rolling in, threatening to separate them. “I offered to help you, Jon, and I meant it.” It pours between them, swirling and curling and obscuring Jon from view. 

“Don’t worry about me,” Sammy hears Jon call out, already sounding so much further than he was. “I know where to go now.” 

There’s a click, like the sound of a tape recorder turning on, and Sammy is left alone once more. 

With a determined set to his jaw, he pointedly turns his back on the waves topped with white foam, the gentle breeze, the endless beach, and makes his way back to the barren imitation of King Falls. As the sand turns into familiar roads, the golden band around Sammy’s index finger gains heat. He doesn’t dare take it off. 

Voices rise, hovering at the edge of hearing where it’s difficult to make out what they’re saying. They overlap and clash, alternating wildly in volume and tone, and by following them, Sammy finds himself standing inside the radio station. Without Jon to keep him solid, he drifts across the floor like a cloud given form, passing his hands over the chrome dials, wondering how long it’s been since the Sammy & Ben Show has featured both of its namesakes.

How many Best Of’s has Ben cycled through while he’s been stuck in the Lonely?

Even though he has no idea how long he’s been gone this time, he guesses that it’s been long enough that any other station owner would have found someone to replace him by now. Of course, not every other station owner has Ben Arnold to contend with. 

With a breezy sigh, he plops into his seat and reaches for the closest headset. No one’s going to hear him, but even doing that much makes him feel more grounded. 

“It’s good to be back,” he tells the empty station, forcing a grin into his voice he only half-believes.

“Sammy?” 

He didn’t hear the door behind him open, but when he twists around, his best friend hovers in the doorway, staring at him like he expects to wake up at any moment. “Are you,” he trails off, then gave himself a shake and tries again. “Are you really here right now?”

Suddenly, the rows of buttons on the call board illuminate, resulting in a barrage of light and discordant sound that has Sammy suppressing a wince after all the time he’s spent wandering in silence. Even now, when he looks out the windows, he observes curls of mist pressing against the glass and a road that never ends. “Trying very hard to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were a couple times when I was writing this when I wondered if Lonely powers actually worked that way, but then I remember that one guy who had camera lenses for eyes. So, basically, when it comes to eldritch powers, it's free real estate.
> 
> Also, Sammy and Jon are probably close to the same age, but honestly? Sammy would adopt him in a heartbeat.


	5. Remnant

Sammy’s back on the show.

This should be a cause for celebration and, well, it’s not _not_ something to be happy about, except that even the best jobs start to chafe when you can’t quit. Ever. Or leave, in Sammy’s case. Those may sound like very similar actions to take, but he’s not talking about turning in his notice or buying out his contract this time. What he means is he literally cannot step one foot out the door without the chill of the Lonely creeping in to reclaim him.

The first time he’d tried it, Ben had grabbed his arm and yelled his name until the sound of the waves faded to a quiet hum in the back of his mind.

Sammy hasn’t tried to leave again since. 

“We’re not calling it Flickering, Ben,” Sammy argues into the microphone. “Flickering’s a loaded word these days and the last thing I need is Tim Jensen coming up to the station with a tank missile to blow me up!”

“Tim would never do that,” Ben pauses, then hedges, “... without checking first.”

“Please explain to our lovely listeners how he’s going to check if I’m RoboSammy without tearing my head off to look for wires.” 

“RoboSammy? Is that really what we’re going with? Besides, before you said you were worried about being blown up.”

“I can be worried about both! Look, as far as I know, I’m the real deal. Now, I know that doesn’t hold much water with all the robots running around, but it’s the best I’ve got.” 

“I just think you should be more transparent with the people of King Falls about your… condition, Sammy. ” Sammy arches a brow at him. 

“And I think my transparency is exactly the problem.” Sammy catches Ben rolling his eyes in his periphery and smirks. “Besides,” he adds with determined flippancy, “I can think of at least five people off the top of my head who wouldn’t exactly be heartbroken if-—”

“They don’t matter,” Ben cuts in. “You told me once that not everyone’s going to like you, and that’s just life. Jack would care if you were gone, Sammy. I would care. Emily and Lily and Troy and all of our friends in King Falls would care.”

Resting his head in his hands, Sammy says, “I’m not saying you wouldn’t, Ben.” 

They’ve had this conversation more times than he could count over the past couple of hours, and since he couldn’t even step outside for a break, he was forced to suffer through the endless assault of Ben’s care. 

Like the sun, it was one of those things that were easier to admire from a distance. 

“No.” Ben vehemently shakes his head, tossing his curls from side to side. “You’re just saying you’re worth not the effort or the risk or whatever, and I’m not going to hear it because it’s not true.” 

The lights on their call board have been shining bright for the past fifteen minutes, but Ben hasn’t let any of the calls through, and he swats Sammy’s hand away whenever he tries. It was old when he did it the first time and was only getting older with repetition. 

There’s a notebook sitting conspicuously on the table with the words _Operation: Save Sammy_ scrawled across the cover. Ben had said he could look inside if he wanted to. Sammy refuses to take him up on it. 

“Is that why you and Jack have matching journals?” He asks bitterly. Every time one of those journals pops up, it means someone he cares about is going to push him away, to withdraw further and further from him and refuse help while they throw themselves headfirst into danger, and all he can do is watch. 

It’s times like these when he almost misses how the Lonely had numbed his heart. 

“It helped me save Jack,” Ben insists. “Helped me save Emily.” 

Frost creeps across the windows in fractal patterns, though Sammy’s too lost in his thoughts to notice. Shivering, Ben wraps his arms tightly around himself. A rattling starts up as his teeth begin to chatter. “And what if I don’t want to be saved?” 

Ben whips his head around to stare at Sammy in blatant disbelief. “You can’t mean that.”

Sammy tentatively meets his gaze, then quickly looks away. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I don’t mean that. It’s just…” He drags a hand down his face. “For five years, all I could think about was Jack. And now he’s back and he’s safe and he’s home and I can’t even see him and—.”

“—and it’s killing you, I know. But I’m going to need you to listen to me because I’m only going to say as many times as it takes for you to believe it - You’re alive, Sammy. And as long as you’re alive, things can get better and they will. You don’t have to deal with this alone.”

“Ben, about that. I don’t think—”

A burst of static that sounds too much like a man's scream rushes from the speakers. Ben claps his hands over his ears with a cry as Sammy scrambles to turn them off, but just as he’s about to slam the switch, the noise cuts off with a terrifying abruptness. All of their calls have been dropped.

There’s an odd sensation in Sammy’s chest, like something coming untethered. 

Ben gapes at him. “Sammy, you’re—”

“Exhausted. Let’s just… Let’s talk about something else, Ben.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [BREAK]


	6. Radio Host Ghost

The brief break between segments goes quickly enough. Sammy can’t leave and Ben won’t leave him alone in the station, so it’s barely even a break, really, except for when Ben digs out a bag of chips from his backpack and starts crunching down on them like he grew up in a barn. Unlike when he was still seething about Sammy keeping Debbie’s warning about Emily a secret, he’d never dare to do this when they’re live, making this his special way of trying to make Sammy’s supernaturally enforced captivity more bearable.

On that note, after coming back from the break, Sammy was noticeably more energized. This did not actually make Ben feel better, though. Not even a little.

“Hey, you’re listening to Ben Arnold,” Sammy fires off the altered greeting with a manic gleam in his eyes, “and your favorite radio show ghost, Sammy Stevens. Ghost host. Quick, Ben, what other words rhyme with ghost?”

Ben frowns at him. “You’re not a ghost, Sammy. Stop being ridiculous.”

Folding his arms over his chest, Sammy huffs, “Hey, you can’t dictate how I self-identify.” In response to Ben’s nearly palpable disapproval, he adds with a devil-may-care shrug, “Okay, so _technically_ the term is apparition, but I think we can all agree that doesn’t have that same ring to it and is way harder to rhyme with than ghost.”

“You’re not an apparition!” 

“Honestly, having an apparition in your radio station doesn’t even rank in the top 10 of weirdest things about this town,” Sammy continues as though he hadn’t heard him. “Still, dead radio hosts can’t be that common. Maybe I’ll end up becoming an urban legend like General Abilene.” 

“It’s not an urban legend if you know it’s real, Sammy. That’s what we in King Falls call a fact of life.”

Amused, Sammy glances at him with a crooked half-smile, before murmuring conspiratorially into the mike, “Don’t turn your radio to channel 660, folks. It’s haunted.” 

Ben throws his hands up. “Fine! Be a child.” 

And since their conversation isn’t going anywhere productive and the call board is lit up, he randomly chooses a line, punching the button with more force than strictly necessary. Sammy winces, probably because he knows neither of them would get away with breaking Merv’s equipment, not after he’d already let Sammy off the hook for tossing it through a window. “Hello, you are live on King Falls AM.” Dead air. After waiting for something to break the silence on the other end of the line, and waiting, and waiting, Ben says, “Archie, I swear, if this is you about to play another one of your Pomchi Palace ads, I’m really not in the-”

“I’m afraid I’m fresh out of Pomchi Palace ads,” a quiet voice cuts in. Sammy’s eyes go wide with recognition. “Hey Ben.”

“Hey Jack,” Ben replies casually, since one of them has to keep their head here, “what’s happening? Everything okay?” 

“Everything’s fine. I’m fine,” Jack responds, too quickly to be anywhere close to convincing. “It’s not me I’m worried about, which is to say that…” Even before he trails off, Ben is staring pointedly at Sammy, nodding his head towards the phone with enough vehemence that there’s a genuine risk that he’s going to crack something. “Sorry. I promise not to take up too much more of your time, but do you think I could talk to Sammy?” The nodding continues. While Jack is blissfully unaware of this, Sammy’s starting to get annoyed and just a tad concerned. “I know you’re doing a show right now, it’s just that it’s been a while since I’ve seen him at the apartment and I was hoping we could talk?”

After shooting Ben an aggrieved look that clearly says, _Alright, you win. Now cut it out_ , Sammy manages, “I’m so sorry, Jack. I’ve been trying to reach you, but…” The sound of a pencil scratching against paper distracts him and he turns to see Ben writing furiously in his journal. Incredulous, he asks, “Are you seriously writing this down?” 

Ben raises his head to look at him, his bangs hanging like curtains in front of his eyes. He blows them away with a huff, “I’m trying to help you, Sammy,” but before they could rehash what was becoming a very old, very worn argument, Jack announces that he’s going to be visiting them at the radio station. 

This is a bad idea on an impressive amount of levels.

“It’s pitch black outside, Jack,” Sammy pleads. “Stay home.”

“Not a chance, Stevens.”

Hearing that, Sammy looks a little like he’s going to be sick. 

It takes Ben back to how worried he was about Emily when she kept throwing herself into her Himinist investigations, how hard it had been to eat or sleep or function when she was taken, and grips Sammy’s hand in his, offering what he hopes is a reassuring smile when Sammy tenses at the touch, glancing down at the point of contact between them with a bracing grimace as though he’s expecting something to happen.

Whatever he’s waiting for, though, it doesn’t come. Ben’s fingers don’t slip through his palm as though he were a man made of smoke, and neither of them feels a chill. 

The next thing Ben knows is Sammy is gripping his hand like it’s a lifeline, a rope keeping him from falling into an endless abyss. Over the phone they hear Jack is grabbing his keys. 

A creak alerts them to the kitchen door swinging open, but before Jack can get to the car, their hotline rings. Without hanging up on Jack, Sammy answers it. Between everything that the Science Institute was capable of and whatever the Himinists were up to, there was too much of a risk not to. 

“Hey, you two,” issues from the hotline in Troy’s trademark drawl. “We’ve got ourselves a Capital-E emergency on our hands. Timbot’s making a mighty ruckus down at the Jensen home. Tim’s doing his best to fight him off but he’s still injured from the last time, and despite what the movies would tell you, guns don’t work very well on robots. Point is, fellas, we need help.” There’s strain in his voice, though he’s doing his best to hide it. 

Ben’s just about to ask him if he’s been injured when Sammy rises to his feet with a grim expression. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Uh, Sammy, no offense, but that’s not really what I-”

Ben pulls his headset off. “Sammy, what are you...?”

Even though the windows are closed, mist begins to seep into the station, creeping down the walls and pooling down on the floor. However, it gives Ben an unnaturally wide berth. It’s this that clues him in that this is somehow Sammy’s doing. Somehow, he’s controlling it. 

With an air of resignation and sorrow so potent it steals Ben’s voice away, Sammy says, “Take care of Ben for me, Jack,” and Ben can hear Jack screaming his name even as the fog climbs over him, rolling over his form until there’s only a pillar of mist and vapor that slowly collapses and retreats, leaving nothing behind. 

Ben is breathless, speechless. He feels like he’s just watched his best friend disappear before his eyes and there wasn't anything he could do to stop it. Again, Sammy had needed him, and _again_ he’d let him down. 

A yelp of surprise from Troy jump-starts him into motion, and he whips around in time to hear Troy whisper in utter disbelief, “Well, as I live and breathe, is that you, Sammy?”

“Sure is,” responds his best friend from what sounds like both an immense and close distance. It’s all Ben hears before Sammy’s voice is drowned out by another harsh, discordant sound that issues from the speakers, making him clap his hands over his ears. It’s followed by a buzzing of static, the roar and crash of waves, and then a dial tone.

“Jack,” Ben calls out, already heading for the door, “Sammy’s gone to help Tim. Meet me at the Jensen’s,” and without waiting for a response, he runs outside the station, jumps into his car, and hightails it out of the driveway.

He doesn’t have a weapon or a plan. He knows this isn’t a good idea.

But Sammy needs him, so he’ll be there. Because Ben knows him and loves him and wants him to stay, and because sometimes knowing that there’s someone out there who cares about you is more effective against the forces threatening to tear us apart than any plan or weapon could be. He just hopes that this is one of those times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and stay safe out there


	7. A Way To Stay

Troy knows that the Jensens are good people. 

The best, actually.

Even after everything he’s gone through, Tim never hesitates to lend his friends a helping hand, even if it means getting thrown in the same cell as them when they get caught sneaking into the Science Institute, and Mary’s been a pillar of support to the community, remaining a steadfast ally to Sammy and Ben after the whole town turned on them. And when Sammy needed help, she’d invited him to her home, promptly tasking him with watching her kids so he could get used to things feeling normal again, one step at a time. 

For as long as Sammy’s been in King Falls, he’s never been able to refuse Mary Jensen anything. Not if it was within his power to do, anyway. Keeping Tim from doing what he thought was right wasn’t something any of them could accomplish without an elephant tranquilizer or two. 

Given that, maybe Troy should have known that Sammy would rush over when he sent out the SOS over the radio. What he could not have known was how soon he would get there. 

After he hears Sammy say he's coming over the phone, the space in front of him begins to distort, blurring and blending like water spilt on wet paint. First, there is the rough outline of a figure, then the edges fill in, until crouching beside him is Sammy himself. HIs bun is askew and mist clings to his skin, but it is undeniably him. 

There is something off, though. 

While Sammy was generally level-headed, now he wears his smile like a brand seared across his face. “Wow,” he exhales with a hysterical edge, vapor curling from his lips, “I didn’t think that would actually work.” Beneath his feet are coal-black scorch marks spreading out in a radial pattern. He studies them and the jagged cracks running through the driveway with a scowl. “Guess this makes me the cavalry.”

Troy looks at the phone in his hand, then back at Sammy, “Well, as I live and breathe, is that you, Sammy?”

When Sammy turns to him his gaze is unfocused, but his tone is confident, “Sure is.”

As Troy wracks his brain for ways to tell if this is, against all odds, the real Sammy Stevens, he hears himself ask, “How are you... What did you just do?” He hasn’t been able to tune in to the radio show much tonight, but he feels like he would have known if Sammy had suddenly developed superpowers. 

“No idea,” Sammy answers shortly, already rising out of his crouch to get a better grasp of the situation. “Where’s the Timbot?” A bolt of concentrated electrical energy comes barreling towards his head and Sammy ducks, letting the projectile hit the Jensen’s bougainvillea bush instead, whereupon it promptly bursts into flame. “Guess that answers that question.” There are already so many charred patches in the lawn that one more burning shrub hardly makes a difference, but when a strangled yelp reaches their ears, Sammy jumps to his feet with a sharp, “Stay down, Troy. I’m going to go help Tim.”

Making to follow, Troy shakes his head. “No can do, buddy. I can’t let you go out there alone.” Sammy stops him with a hand on his shoulder. Troy opens his mouth to protest, but whatever he was about to say is quickly forgotten when he gets his first good look of Sammy’s eyes. There aren’t any pupils, no iris or anything beyond. Clouds pass over their rounded surface as though blown by a strong wind, and though Troy doesn’t mention it, doesn’t make a sound, the expression spreading over Sammy’s features speaks of loss.

“You kind of have to, Troy. That’s how this whole thing works.” 

Before Troy can reassure him that he was only startled - and also maybe after this Sammy should go see an optometrist? - Sammy’s dashing into danger, following the sound of Tim’s hydraulics-powered power suit to the street where Tim-1000 is holding his arm like a canon as it charges another devastating blast.

* * *

What does it mean to be alive? To be human?

Sometimes, it can mean rushing into danger on the off chance that someone else doesn’t get hurt. Or fighting a battle you know you can’t win because to lay down and surrender would be to give up a part of yourself that you’re not willing to lose. 

Sammy owes his life to Peter Lukas and the Lonely, but what he chooses to do with it is up to him. There is a kind of defiance to that. 

Even if all the choices are equally terrible, they are his, and if that is the case, then maybe he isn’t as trapped as he’d thought. Or maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe the only thing that matters is making sure Timbot doesn’t blow Tim’s head off in the next five minutes. 

Tim is standing in the middle of the street, glowing a bright blue in his exo-suit. His face helmet has a crack running through its visor and one of his hands hangs limply at his sides. Standing about fifteen feet away from him is the robot. It looks like Tim has gotten a couple good hits in, since half of its face has sustained significant damage, exposing the sparking circuitry beneath. 

“Sammy!” Tim calls out to him when he notices him approaching. “What are you doing here? Get somewhere safe!” 

It warms Sammy’s heart to know that even when he is risking his life like this, Tim still puts the safety of others before himself, though it frustrates him, too. What business does a man with a wife and kids have fighting robots? 

Guys like that should leave the fighting to the real monsters. 

Thanks to Tim’s warning, the Timbot is alerted to Sammy’s presence. It isn’t like Sammy is exactly trying to hide, so it doesn’t bother him overly much when its eyes zero in on him with the sound of a camera lens adjusting. “Target identified: Sammy Stevens.”

See that? It feels good to be wanted.

Keeping his hands visible and his tone pleasantly conversational, Sammy starts chatting up the killer robot, “You keep coming back to this place, don’t you?” Tim-1000 cocks its head, a gesture human enough to momentarily throw Sammy off track. It’s only a brief hesitation, though. Hardly noticeable. “I think I know why. You were programmed with memories of being a father and a husband, and you were happy, right? For a while.” Playing with the kids, making jokes. There was a reason the Timbot had managed to fool them for so long. “Then this impostor,” Sammy jerks his head towards Tim, “over here came out of nowhere to steal your wife, your family, your home… I’d be angry, too. I’d be furious.”

He can tell that the Timbot’s listening, at least. And it’s not attacking, so that’s always a plus. 

The real Tim, though, is starting to look _very_ confused. He shoots Sammy a questioning look, which Sammy pretends not to see. 

The bot lifts its canon at him, “Such emotions are not required for the completion of my mission,” and Sammy responds with a contemplative sound. 

“Is that so?” Tim’s started fiddling desperately with his busted arm, as if by getting it working he can somehow save Sammy, or at least buy him time to escape. He’s too preoccupied to notice the echo threading through Sammy’s voice when he says, “Sounds lonely. Tell you what, why don’t you come over here and take me out? I’m one of your targets, right? Be a real feather in your bonnet.”

As the robot begins to approach, getting further and further away from Tim despite the man’s best efforts to move in his damaged suit, to yell and threaten and plead for the robot to leave Sammy alone, Sammy can’t help but think about how this isn’t a sacrifice. 

The robot gets within strangling distance, the heat of its overworked mechanisms so high it presses against Sammy’s skin, but even though it’s so close it doesn’t register the mist curling around his fingertips, nor the sudden drop in his core temperature. A calm settles over Sammy like a haze and he grabs ahold of the Timbot, and without any sort of change in sensation, their scenery changes. 

Tim is gone. Sammy can’t hear him calling out for him, anymore. 

The street and houses are nowhere to be seen. 

Instead, they’re back on the beach, surrounded by waves and fog. 

The Timbot turns to him, confusion morphing into incandescent rage as it lifts its blaster to Sammy’s chest. Sammy leans closer, unafraid. “Take a good look at my face, Timbot. I’m the last person you’re ever going to see.” Slowly, the fog rolls over the robot, and even its imitated emotion fades into blankness as its arm lowers down to its side. As though it’s forgotten Sammy is there, it begins to walk away, further and further into the mist until only the blue light it emits can be seen, and then even that is swallowed and gone.

Sammy tries not to think about what it means that the Timbot could feel enough fear to feed his patron. He tries not to think about it all. 

He doesn’t know how to get back to King Falls this time. Before, he’d thought of his family, of Jack and Ben and Lily and Emily, but now thinking of them brings a sort of tired acceptance. They're going to be fine without him. Ben has Emily, Lily and Jack have each other. 

It’s better if he stays. Peter Lukas won’t go after them, and maybe Jack will finally get a chance to move on without his fiance constantly dragging the supernatural into his life.

“It’s easy to think that, I know. That the people you love would be better off without you. Very rarely is it ever true, though.” There’s someone else in the fog. He’s only an inch or so taller than Sammy, with a friendly face and a patch of shock white in his wavy brown hair. He’s dressed in a comfy-looking sweater and trousers, as though he’d been heading to a cafe before the Lonely gobbled him up. 

Something of Sammy’s assessment must show, because the man offers a gentle, slightly self-deprecating smile. “Peter’s gone, you know. There’s nothing keeping you here.” For a moment, Sammy reels. Peter Lukas is gone? What does that even mean? Did he retire? Did he die? He glances around instinctively, though he isn’t sure what’s looking for. There’s nothing to be seen, of course. What mark would the death of one man leave on a place that stretches to eternity? Perhaps that is what Peter Lukas would have wanted. To be forgotten. 

It is not, Sammy realizes with a lurch, what _he_ wants.

“It’ll be tough to leave on your own at first,” the man continues, clearly speaking from experience, “but it gets easier.”

“Can you show me how?” Although there’s no way of telling how long he’s been in the Lonely, his voice feels rusty from disuse. 

The man offers him a sympathetic look. “It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid.”

“What’s going to happen to you if I leave?”

He's thinking about Jon, now. Jon had told him he’d be able to find his own way out, but what if he’d just been saying that to get Sammy to leave? What if he's still trapped here, searching for someone he may never find?

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me,” the man says with a light chuckle. When Sammy squints his eyes skeptically at him, he adds hastily, “I’ll be okay. Honest. There’s… there’s someone waiting for me, actually.” There’s a note of awe in his voice, as though he can hardly believe it himself. As though the notion is so foreign and new and wonderful he can barely even concieve it. 

Sammy knows what it looks like when someone’s in love. He’s seen it in the mirror. He’s seen it sitting in the seat next to him for years, and this more than anything is what allows him to finally relax. “Looks like Jon found you, after all.”

A look of surprise flashes across Martin’s face, followed quickly by an undeniable fondness as he huffs, “It’s what he does.”

* * *

Not long after, the Lonely deposits Sammy on the Jensen’s driveway. 

It’s a rejection that feels oddly permanent. 

“I think I’ve been fired,” Sammy mutters, feeling dazed as he tries to get a grip on his bearings. The shortcuts from home to the radio station had been nice, but he isn’t exactly going to miss being forgotten.

“Sammy!” The force that hits him next nearly bowls him over, stealing his breath away because Ben is somehow latched around him, squeezing his ribs so tightly it hurts. He fits the way he always has, and warmth expands within Sammy, a feeling that swells until he’s afraid he might burst with it. 

“Ben,” Sammy chokes out, burying his head in his curls, “I’m back. I’m here. And I’m- I’m so sorry.”

“You know none of us can be happy without you around, right, Sammy? I need you. We all need you. So, please, please, don’t disappear anymore.”

Peter Lukas was dead. The Lonely had flat-out rejected him.

“I think I might be here to stay this time, Ben.” 

Ben draws back without letting go, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen. “You better be.”

He fills him in on what happened while he was gone. Once the robot was out of the picture, Troy was able to eventually convince Tim to let him drive him down to the hospital so they could get his arm and burns treated. Sammy did his best not to let his guilt show on his face when Ben talked about how hard Tim had fought to stay and look for him, but it must have shown anyway because Ben gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“I’m gonna text Troy really quick. Let him and Tim now you’re okay before Tim tries to break out of the hospital.” Sammy expects him to step away, only for Ben to start texting one-handed, leaving his free hand to rest on Sammy’s arm, as though he might vanish again if Ben stops touching him for even a second. 

They are going to have to extricate themselves from each other, eventually, but for now Sammy is grateful for the contact. It is grounding, especially after being anchorless and adrift for a small piece of eternity. 

“Hey, Ben? Did you find Sammy?” Sammy did not expect to have the air knocked from his lungs twice in one day, nor did he expect to see Jack standing under the Jensen’s porch lights, illuminated and shining with a flashlight in his hand. His hair is disheveled from his bad habit of constantly running his hands through it when he gets nervous, his shirt is wrinkled, his skin is coated with sweat, and he is still the most beautiful, most gorgeous man Sammy has ever seen.

Sammy tries to say his name, but all that comes out is something pitiful and aching, something torn from the heart of him. Even so, Jack hears. And suddenly there are two sets of arms wrapped around Sammy, and Jack is kissing his forehead, his cheeks, his jaw, his neck, all the while muttering, “I love you, you stupid _stupid_ man. You absolute idiot.”

“Babe,” Sammy laughs wetly, “you’re making me blush.”

With Ben still sandwiched between them, Jack slaps his hands on either side of his fiance’s face. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.” Then he lets his head fall heavily against Sammy’s shoulder, “I was so afraid I was going to lose you.”

Threading his fingers through Jack’s close-cut hair, Sammy presses a light kiss against his scalp. “You’re not going to lose me, Jack. You found me.”

“We find each other,” Ben says sagely. Then his mouth opens wide, letting out a loud, long yawn. “Let’s stay found for a while, though, okay? Man, I feel like I haven’t slept in a month.” Before Sammy could say anything, he preempts him with, “No, don’t apologize. Just stay where I can see you for the next forever and we’ll work out everything from there.”

Sammy’s mouth curves into a wry grin. “I’m not sure Emily would like that.”

“Are you kidding? That brilliant idea was the result of a collaborative effort.” Stepping away, Ben shakes his finger accusingly, “Face it - You’re grounded, young man.” 

Unable to resist, Sammy huffs a laugh - he is already feeling more like himself than he has in ages - and reaches out to ruffle Ben’s hair affectionately.

They pile into Ben’s car, turning on the interior lights for peace of mind, then start the drive home with Ben in the passenger seat, keeping one hand on Sammy and the other on Jack, keeping them all safe and connected and here.

It will be some time before Sammy will feel comfortable being on his own, even if he still needs time to recharge from the near constant social interaction every now and then. Darkness will still fill him and Jack with dread and anxiety, though they are slowly working on it, and sometimes he finds himself almost missing the simplicity of the Lonely, but then he thinks of his friends, his family, the people of King Falls, and the ache within dulls, becomes bearable. 

He doubts it ever will wholly disappear, but with his heart safe with Jack, whether it continues to beat or not hardly matters. Sammy will always find his way back to him. 

He will always find a way to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading. I really hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
